Training in Group Counseling and Group Psychotherapy*

Anyone who attempts to define the concept of counseling or to differentiate between counseling and therapy usually walks on thin ice, as there are almost as many theories in existence as individuals who represent these theories. Consequently, it would be little short of a Herculean task to quote the writers on the subjects of counseling and therapy comprehensively, nor is this the aim of this paper. In order to adopt some working hypothesis, however, several writers from different schools are quoted arbitrarily, yet not entirely so, for they seem to represent the general views of a majority of theorists.

Slavson48, 49 distinguishes between casework therapy, supportive therapy, insight therapy, intermediate therapy and psychoanalysis, all of which attest to the awareness of differences in intensity and depth of treatment and of the layers of the personality that can or should be involved in it. He defines psychotherapy as “the corrective process by which an individual is rendered accessible to formative influences, who otherwise remains resistive or incapable of assimilating them.” His definition implies that the patterning of the human personality is a province of education in its widest and most inclusive sense, and that “therapeutic measures are marshaled when for some reason education has not taken root.” Therefore, Slavson reasons, “psychotherapy alone is considered capable of changing personalities; it changes its inner structure and stays so that the influences of external formative demands can shape its adaptive and executive capacities in accordance with various systems of the environment and the individual's needs for self-realization.” On the other hand, Slavson states that counseling and guidance deal specifically with ego functioning and to a lesser extent with the self-image. He fells that educational, vocational, pre-marital and family counseling are not